FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Renting an automatic car in Dijon or Beaune France
Old Oct 22, 2013 | 4:24 pm
  #11  
ajGoes
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: DAY/CMH
Programs: UA MileagePlus
Posts: 2,474
Originally Posted by Scots_Al
You might want to check that you would be allowed to drive a manual. For example, I don't know what rules apply to foreign licence holders in the UK, but if a UK licence-holder sat their driving test in an automatic, then they are ONLY licenced to drive automatics.
US state driving licenses don't have separate endorsements for manual transmissions, so countries that honor them have no way to know whether the license holder can drive a stick.

I think it's rather odd that other countries accept US licenses so freely, given the disparity in testing standards. It makes holding a US license convenient, but I shudder to think of the accidents that must happen abroad when random Americans get loose on the much-more-challenging European roads.
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